Do the religious have higher morals than the non-religious?

by digderidoo 30 Replies latest jw friends

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  digderidoo

  Ok, i was going to ask whether Christians have higher morals, but i thought that other religions have the same kind of morals too.

  When i look at those who sincerely follow their religion, i think that they do have a higher morality than those who do not follow some sort of scriptural guidelines.

  This is not to say that the religious have a monopoly on morality, or to say that some religious people are not hypocritical in doing what they say, rather than what they do. But as a whole it seems to me that someone with a religious upbringing has higher standards than someone without.

  Now some would say that higher standards or lower standards are defined by society, so therefore by whose definition do they have higher morals. This would be a fair assumption. But by the basic standards, of decency, treating others with respect and honesty i would say that the religious seem to fair better.

  From my experience, seeing the way society is going, in particular in this country, i truly feel that if people had a scriptural basis to their lives society would benefit.

  Paul
• 

  changeling

  When morality is imposed by an outside source (God) and that source will do you harm (hell or Armageddon) if you don't live by those morals, are you really moral?

  When you base your life on being kind and fair to all, regardless of what others say or what is in it for you, that is true moralilty.

  changeling :)
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  littlerockguy

  Horseshit. Religious people only APPEAR to have higher morals; it's mostly about appearance when it comes to religion. How many times have you heard of holy people who are in church every time the doors are open, are pillars of a community, appear blameless and then later exposed in some sort of immoral scandal.

  LRG
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  Gopher

  From what I've seen, on the whole it is about the same. People decide to do the right thing hopefully because they love humanity. For religious people there can be an additional reward / punishment factor where a deity will reward them if they do good and punish harshly those who don't.

  As an atheist, I would do the right thing because I want to make my contribution to the betterment of humanity as a whole. I don't need or want the promise of a deity's reward or fear of a deity's punishment to be my motivation for doing the right thing. If I do the right thing people are likely to trust me more and want to associate with me.

  If it takes a threat of punishment or a promise of a reward to get someone to do right, they're not "moral" to me. However I believe either religious or non-religious people do the right thing because they want to play nice with people and because they want to feel they've done the right thing.
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  Anti-Christ

  I believe that there is no such thing has morality. We are animals and we learn how to coexist by the reaction other people have towards our actions. Religious people act according to a code that evolved through that process and through superstition, ex.; lest sacrifice an animal to calm the god of thunder. So no I don't believe religious people have higher morals.
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  nvrgnbk

  Moral Naturalism

  http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism-moral/

  Excerpt:

  Natural facts are understood to be facts about the natural world, facts of the sort in which the natural sciences trade. That is certainly vague, something some critics of naturalism are not slow to observe. However the details are filled in, the naturalist seems vulnerable either to a charge of either likely error or emptiness since, on the one hand, much science as presently constituted is all too liable to turn out false while, on the other, any appeal to an ideal completed science is apt to be as thin on content as our present grasp of what such an ideal science might say (Hampton 1998, chapter 1). The naturalist might well however resist the force of this supposed dilemma. J. J. C. Smart's injunction that we take science as our best guide to metaphysical truth (Smart 1996, 6) doesn't require us to treat our current scientific understandings as infallible. It merely invites us to do what good scientific practice itself does in deferring to our present background state of general scientific understanding as the best story we now have about the universe and its furnishings. It is no doubt a flawed, imperfect story still very much in progress, but far more to be trusted than the rival guidance we might seek from theology, say, or the wilder reaches of a more speculative metaphysics as we persist with a philosophical enterprise itself no less fallible and incomplete. [1]

  The ambition of moral naturalism in this broad sense is well described by Simon Blackburn (1984, 182):

  To ask no more of the world than we already know is there—the ordinary features of things on the basis of which we make decisions about them, like or dislike them, fear them and avoid them, desire them and seek them out. It asks no more than this: a natural world, and patterns of reaction to it.
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  IP_SEC

  morals are something that one aspires to or not. they are not something that can be had or not had.

  morals are subjective.

  i've known many non-religious persons who have not cheated on a spouse.

  i've known many religious persons who will stick the proverbial ice pick in your back first chance they get.

  its a wash me thinks.
• 

  MissingLink

  From what I've seen piety and morality are completely unrelated.

  Non-believers do the right thing just because it's the right thing. Believers do the right thing to avoid punishment. Which is better?
• 

  trevor

  But by the basic standards, of decency, treating others with respect and honesty i would say that the religious seem to fair better.

  I am wondering how would this apply to the moral conduct of Muslims towards their women and the infidels that surround their special nation?
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  Zico

  I wonder if "the non-religious" claim "the religious" only stay moral because they want a reward to make themselves feel superior?
  
  In answer to your question, I don't know. Most people seem to disagree, but maybe your average American is more moral than your average Brit?